NewsWhore
05-31-2007, 03:40 PM
Bernardo Vega, historical researcher, former governor of the Central Bank and ambassador to the US, writes in today's Clave Digital about the way the three leading political parties have become "three of a kind". He says Dominican parties fit in with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's statement in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" that "the only difference between liberals and conservatives is that some go to mass at 5 and others go at 8pm."
Vega comments that when studying the government plan proposed by former President Hipolito Mejia in his 2000 electoral campaign there is no reference to the massive indebtedness that would mark his government, with loans taken for the purchase of overvalued and non-priority goods, from commercial banks, primarily Spanish lenders. There was no mention either of issuing sovereign bonds in the electoral proposals. His party, the PRD was always a strong supporter of a ban on presidential re-election, but it went on to modify the Constitution to permit this. Ironically, this has been to President Leonel Fernandez's benefit.
Vega then comments on President Leonel Fernandez who in his electoral campaign in 2004 never mentioned that the government's largest expenditure would be the metro, or that his government would undertake borrowing from a handful of Brazilian companies without transparency [the Senate has passed a first reading on US$91 million in Brazilian loans for the Samana aqueduct and Pinalito dam] , or the tax reforms that affected the middle class instead of the wealthy.
He also mentions that the issues that divide voters in other countries are absent from Dominican political debates. These include the legalization of abortion and migration. He then comments that controversial priest Pierre Ruquoy, prior to leaving the country, dared to publish a list of middlemen who help Haitians to make illegal border crossings, with their full names and locations. This touched upon important military and business interests. But, he observes, the issue of migration is not dealt with any of the three leading political parties, none of which refuse to take a position. In our country the politicians have not made their positions on abortion and migration known and instead we only hear their slogans without promises, positions or any substance. He concludes, as Garcia Marquez would have said: "We are a race condemned to 100 years of political solitude. Will we have a second chance on Earth?"
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)
Vega comments that when studying the government plan proposed by former President Hipolito Mejia in his 2000 electoral campaign there is no reference to the massive indebtedness that would mark his government, with loans taken for the purchase of overvalued and non-priority goods, from commercial banks, primarily Spanish lenders. There was no mention either of issuing sovereign bonds in the electoral proposals. His party, the PRD was always a strong supporter of a ban on presidential re-election, but it went on to modify the Constitution to permit this. Ironically, this has been to President Leonel Fernandez's benefit.
Vega then comments on President Leonel Fernandez who in his electoral campaign in 2004 never mentioned that the government's largest expenditure would be the metro, or that his government would undertake borrowing from a handful of Brazilian companies without transparency [the Senate has passed a first reading on US$91 million in Brazilian loans for the Samana aqueduct and Pinalito dam] , or the tax reforms that affected the middle class instead of the wealthy.
He also mentions that the issues that divide voters in other countries are absent from Dominican political debates. These include the legalization of abortion and migration. He then comments that controversial priest Pierre Ruquoy, prior to leaving the country, dared to publish a list of middlemen who help Haitians to make illegal border crossings, with their full names and locations. This touched upon important military and business interests. But, he observes, the issue of migration is not dealt with any of the three leading political parties, none of which refuse to take a position. In our country the politicians have not made their positions on abortion and migration known and instead we only hear their slogans without promises, positions or any substance. He concludes, as Garcia Marquez would have said: "We are a race condemned to 100 years of political solitude. Will we have a second chance on Earth?"
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)